{"id":730,"date":"2011-10-11T12:13:54","date_gmt":"2011-10-11T16:13:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/omsweetom\/?p=730"},"modified":"2011-10-11T12:13:54","modified_gmt":"2011-10-11T16:13:54","slug":"fat-drunk-yogis-the-continued-confusion-behind-yoga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/2011\/10\/fat-drunk-yogis-the-continued-confusion-behind-yoga.html","title":{"rendered":"Fat, drunk yogis: The continued confusion behind yoga"},"content":{"rendered":"
I\u2019m a fan of Maureen Dowd\u2019s column in the New York Times<\/em> – her writing is pleasingly quirky and relevant. \u00a0Needless to say, I was intrigued when a friend forwarded her latest piece, which was provocatively titled \u201cHow Garbo Learned to Stand on her Head<\/a>.\u201d \u00a0It started out well enough – yoga as a stress reliever.But by the end of it, I was, well, stressed! \u00a0\u00a0According to William Broad, the author whose book Dowd was reviewing, yoga began as a \u201csex cult,\u201d can make a person fat, and is a \u201ckinder version of alcohol.\u201d \u00a0Not having yet read Broad\u2019s book, I\u2019m not so sure I even want to anymore thanks to Dowd\u2019s summary. \u00a0Once again, we see yoga being described in terms of a purely physical practice – posture and breath – with no mention of the underlying philosophy or spirituality that drives it.<\/p>\n

Far from beginning as a \u201csex cult\u201d with Tantric roots, yoga has always been a part and parcel of the Hindu tradition with an end goal of union with the Divine. \u00a0Yoga and yogic practices date back over 5,000 years \u2014 the Indus Valley seals depict a number of figures in postures identical to various asanas. \u00a0The terms \u201cyoga\u201d and \u201cyogi\u201d have been mentioned in sacred ancient Hindu texts, such as the Upanishads<\/em> and the Bhagavad Gita<\/em>, with a keen focus on the practitioner\u2019s ability to achieve a steady mental state in order to attain oneness with the Divine. \u00a0In his famed Yoga Sutras<\/em>, Patanjali describes the goal of yoga as chitta-vritti-nirodha<\/em>, or \u201cthe cessation of mental fluctuations\u201d – a far cry from Broad\u2019s described sexual arousal and climax which clearly imply fluctuations in one\u2019s mental (and physical) state.<\/p>\n

Secondly, if yoga can make a person fat, someone forgot to mention it to countless size 00 actresses and models who swear by it. \u00a0If yoga does lower the rate at which a person burns through calories, then arguably, that person will be hungry less often, and thus, consume less food. \u00a0So, where does the issue of becoming fat arise? \u00a0Because once again only the physical aspect of yoga is being analyzed. Yoga is a holistic method which encompasses both physical and spiritual discipline, entails mastery over the body, mind and emotional self, and transcendence of desire. And asana is only one of the eight limbs of yoga. \u00a0The first limb is yama<\/em>, or restraint, which in and of itself is suggestive of the idea that we should temper our consumption. \u00a0Patanjali lists five yamas<\/em>, but some sources actually list ten<\/a>, one of which is mitahara<\/em>, or moderation of appetite – neither eating too much nor too little. \u00a0Learning to moderate our countless desires is fundamental to yoga, but seemingly overlooked in the purely physical interpretation of the practice.<\/p>\n

Finally, from a purely practitioner standpoint, the idea that my 90 minute yoga practice has the same affect on my mind as a glass of wine, is absurd. \u00a0Yoga is considered to be best practiced early in the morning, on an empty stomach. \u00a0It loosens the various muscles of the body, centers the mind, and energizes the practitioner for the remainder of the day. If you are drinking a glass of wine first thing in the morning to achieve a similar effect, it\u2019s likely time to check into AA.<\/p>\n

Two years ago, the Hindu American Foundation launched its Take Back Yoga<\/a> campaign to educate the public that yoga is one, much more than just a calorie burning, muscle toning physical exercise and two, rooted in Hindu philosophy. \u00a0Yoga is \u201can inward journey, where you explore your mind, your awareness, your consciousness, your conscience,\u201d and attempts, such as Broad\u2019s, to draw broad conclusions based on analysis of just the physical aspect of the practice do a disservice to this universal gift.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m a fan of Maureen Dowd\u2019s column in the New York Times – her writing is pleasingly quirky and relevant. \u00a0Needless to say, I was intrigued when a friend forwarded her latest piece, which was provocatively titled \u201cHow Garbo Learned to Stand on her Head.\u201d \u00a0It started out well enough – yoga as a stress…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":390,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hinduism-101"],"yoast_head":"\nFat, drunk yogis: The continued confusion behind yoga - Om Sweet Om<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Fat, drunk yogis: The continued confusion behind yoga - Om Sweet Om\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I\u2019m a fan of Maureen Dowd\u2019s column in the New York Times – her writing is pleasingly quirky and relevant. \u00a0Needless to say, I was intrigued when a friend forwarded her latest piece, which was provocatively titled \u201cHow Garbo Learned to Stand on her Head.\u201d \u00a0It started out well enough – yoga as a stress…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/2011\/10\/fat-drunk-yogis-the-continued-confusion-behind-yoga.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Om Sweet Om\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-10-11T16:13:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"sheetal\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Fat, drunk yogis: The continued confusion behind yoga - Om Sweet Om","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"nofollow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Fat, drunk yogis: The continued confusion behind yoga - Om Sweet Om","og_description":"I\u2019m a fan of Maureen Dowd\u2019s column in the New York Times – her writing is pleasingly quirky and relevant. \u00a0Needless to say, I was intrigued when a friend forwarded her latest piece, which was provocatively titled \u201cHow Garbo Learned to Stand on her Head.\u201d \u00a0It started out well enough – yoga as a stress…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/2011\/10\/fat-drunk-yogis-the-continued-confusion-behind-yoga.html","og_site_name":"Om Sweet Om","article_published_time":"2011-10-11T16:13:54+00:00","author":"sheetal","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/2011\/10\/fat-drunk-yogis-the-continued-confusion-behind-yoga.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/2011\/10\/fat-drunk-yogis-the-continued-confusion-behind-yoga.html","name":"Fat, drunk yogis: The continued confusion behind yoga - Om Sweet Om","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-10-11T16:13:54+00:00","dateModified":"2011-10-11T16:13:54+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/#\/schema\/person\/892f83fe41e8ba0b2d625fb00436cec8"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/2011\/10\/fat-drunk-yogis-the-continued-confusion-behind-yoga.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/2011\/10\/fat-drunk-yogis-the-continued-confusion-behind-yoga.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/2011\/10\/fat-drunk-yogis-the-continued-confusion-behind-yoga.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Fat, drunk yogis: The continued confusion behind yoga"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/","name":"Om Sweet Om","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Sheetal Shah","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/#\/schema\/person\/892f83fe41e8ba0b2d625fb00436cec8","name":"sheetal","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/b81\/b81e39bd8aa137041bf8c5f1ece2d99fx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/b81\/b81e39bd8aa137041bf8c5f1ece2d99fx96.jpg","caption":"sheetal"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/author\/sheetal"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/390"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=730"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":732,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730\/revisions\/732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/omsweetom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}